How much oil it would take to buy the US? [400 billion barrels]

How much oil it would take to buy the US?

articles.moneycentral.msn.com

At the recent price of $140 a barrel, it turns out to be a mere 400 billion barrels, or just about the combined reserves of Iran and Saudi Arabia.

That's when the world starts to look very different. It also looks more than a little scary to the U.S. Today, the net worth of the entire country is equivalent to a mere 400 billion barrels of oil. That's a smidgeon less than the proven reserves of two Middle Eastern countries: Saudi Arabia (264 billion barrels) and Iran (139 billion barrels).

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 18-7-2008 by SystemiK]

Here is an interesting way to look at our nations 'household net worth' that I've never seen before.

I learned this by measuring the net worth of all U.S. households and nonprofit organizations in barrels of oil. Every three months the Federal Reserve estimates the value of our collective tangible assets, financial assets and liabilities to arrive at our net worth. It's the whole enchilada -- all our cars, our houses, our durable "stuff," bank deposits, stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Everything. Then it subtracts all our mortgages, consumer credit and other debt to arrive at our net worth.

I'm not enough of an economist to understand all the ways in which this data might be skewed but it's an interesting viewpoint compared to more common methods.

(Edit: Remove BB code that trashed the post. See Chart at source link.)

According to the authors method, in 1970, it would have taken 1.1 trillion barrels of oil to equal the household net worth of $3.4 Trillion. In 2008 it only takes 400 billion barrels of oil to equal the household net worth of $56 trillion.

What do you guys make of this? Is it a fair comparison or is the author skewing the data to support his view?

articles.moneycentral.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)


[edit on 18-7-2008 by SystemiK]

Damn it! The BB code for the chart works in preview just fine but not in the final post...guess you'll have to read the article.


[edit on 18-7-2008 by SystemiK]

It's not skewed, but it's still sensationalistic. For comparison's sake, in 1970 Gold was approximately $35 (US) per ounce. Today American Eagle gold is hovering around $1,000 an ounce. That's an increase of almost 29%. It is also very convenient for him that he picked 1970 because immediately following that year oil began to escalate in price, and dramatically spiked during the Yom Kippur War oil embargo in '73.